pelosi was speaker. this was an unserious proposal. and i can understand why my good friend, the majority leader, would rather not vote on it, because i can't imagine that it would get many, if any, votes in the senate here as well. having made that point, with regard to pntr for russia, when the two parties first sat down to discuss the so-called fiscal cliff, it was widely assumed among republicans that president obama and democrats actually wanted to avoid it. that was the premise that any possible agreement had shown. that was the common goal, or so we thought. over the past couple of weeks it's become increasingly clear to many of us that we were simply wrong about that. incredibly, many top democrats, including the president, seemed perfectly happy -- perfectly happy -- to go off the cliff. that's why the president has been more interested in campaign rallies than actually negotiating a deal. and it explains why the president is now stubbornly insisting on raising tax rates when he himself said jus